Harnessing Interactive DTC to Drive Demand in Product Launch
Executive Summary
Given the importance of a rapid launch of new products, many pharmaceutical firms are turning to consumer marketing tools to create consumer demand. To date, much of the consumer marketing effort has focused on direct-to-consumer advertising, but more and more drug companies are learning to harness the power of the Internet to push out their product message.Far more than simply establishing a web site, interactive DTC--or iDTC--marketing is a two-way approach whereby companies and consumers exchange information through feedback loops, the end result of which is to develop and deepen customer relationships. To be effective, however, iDTC campaigns must have a clear sense of the bottlenecks to product adoption, establish reasonable goals and expectations, and coordinate with and complement much more traditional launch strategies.
You may also be interested in...
Cyberizing the Rep: Can E-Marketing Solve Pharma's Promotional Dilemma?
Drug marketing is increasingly expensive and decreasingly productive. WebMD Health, the dominant health portal, argues it is not merely another advertising forum, but a more effective influencer of consumer and physician behavior than detail reps and DTC promotion. So far, drug companies remain on the sidelines, having been burned once by similar arguments about the marketing value of neutral channels, represented by PBMs, of which many of WebMD's managers are alumnae.
The Evolution of E-Empowered Consumer Marketing
Effective consumer web sites balance straightforward ads with customized disease management--and eventually bring the physician into the corporate-consumer dialog.
New EU Approvals
The Pink Sheet's list of EU centralized approvals of new active substances has been updated to add two new products, including Ryzneuta, Evive Biotechnology's treatment for chemotherapy-induced neutropenia.